Chapter 38 #2
A polite cough came from behind them. Emmeline glanced over her shoulder at Theo, hanging back and observing the reunion. He made a vague motion with his hand. “I guess I’ll … I should probably go.”
“Wait.” Father stepped to him, and Emmeline’s breath caught. For her, it had been months of shared history with Theo. For Father, he was still the young man sneaking around with his daughter for five days.
Theo contorted his face in worry, but maintained a straight posture.
Father extended a hand. “Will Marshall. Pleased to meet you.”
Theo shook it. “Leon Royer—but, well, everyone calls me Theo.”
Emily, newly freed from Mother’s grasp, nudged Emmeline. “Yeah, he’s not blond, but I see it.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “I see it. Glad he made it out, though.”
Emmeline frowned. “What?”
“Tell me you jumped off a lifeboat to stay with him at least once.”
“I did, but—”
“See,” Emily said loudly, and to no one in particular. “This girl understands the importance of reenacting movies.”
“Emily.” Father looked back at her. “She has no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, well. I can explain everything. I will explain everything. We’ve got plenty of time.” She nodded her head at Will and Theo. “Gramps, you should invite the boy to dinner.”
“You know it’s our house, right?” Mother said to her.
“Ah, here we go again, and me thinking you finally got better …”
“Me? I have nothing to worry about regarding my character …”
Emmeline smiled, left Aunt Emily and Mother to bicker, and walked over to Father and Theo. “Do you think he could come to dinner?”
Father pressed a kiss to her temple. “Anything you want, dear. Anything you want.”
Safe in her father’s embrace, she smiled at Theo and winked.
New York City
Three months later
“I’ll get the door!” Emmeline checked her appearance in the mirror one last time and ran to the front entrance of their house. A whoosh of a pleasant summer breeze entered the hallway as she opened the door, revealing the last two guests for her birthday party. “Grandma! Grandpa!”
“My beautiful birthday girl.” Grandma kissed her cheek. “Look at you, so grown up already.”
“You saw me a month ago.”
“Oh, well, time flies.” Grandma winked at Grandpa, then smiled at Emmeline. “And where is your young man? He’d better be treating you well, or I’ll have words with him.”
“He’s in the dining room, talking with Father about telephones.”
“Oh, Will.” Grandma shook her head and nudged Grandpa. “That’s because of you, you know. All the technology obsession.”
“Actually, Theo is quite interested in it,” Emmeline said. “Come in. We’re all ready.”
She escorted her grandparents to the dining room, where the rest of the party had gathered.
The table was set for a spectacular dinner: the finest china laid out, the vases of flowers precisely positioned, the lamps lit to provide a cozy ambiance.
Emmeline stopped at the entrance and proudly beheld her family, scattered around in groups.
Theo and Father chatted by the fireplace, Aunt Emily and Uncle James stood by one of the windows, Emily saying something about “Don’t make me hold a vote for the name,” and her brothers quarreled over a pocket watch—
“Hey!” Emmeline cut in, putting one hand on Tristan’s shoulder, and another on Brendon’s to keep them apart. “What’s that?”
“Brendon won’t let me see the watch,” Tristan said.
“It’s not yours, it’s Father’s!”
“But he left it on the table, so it’s fair for me to look.”
“Well, you’d already broken it. See, it doesn’t work!”
“That thing is not for you, boys.” Emmeline snatched the watch out of Brendon’s fingers.
A quick look-over confirmed it was Father’s time-traveling pocket watch, not the regular one.
Aunt Emily and Father both agreed that Emmeline had been the only one to get the effects from Mother—meaning Brendon and Tristan weren’t time travelers—but it still didn’t hurt to be cautious.
She didn’t want any surprises of that kind tonight.
“But—” Brendon objected.
“You can ask Father to lend it to you later.” She sashayed away with the watch, heading to the other side of the room, but got intercepted by Mother.
“You look splendid, darling.” Regardless, Mother still pushed a strand of Emmeline’s hair back, adjusted her necklace—the locket Theo had given her—and straightened out the sleeves of her beaded lavender gown.
Emmeline didn’t mind the fuss. She thanked her mother, kissed her on the cheek, and walked over to Aunt Emily and Uncle James. “And how are you two doing?”
“Starving,” Emily said. “Thank you for giving us a ride here, though.”
“No problem. Sorry for that brief foray into India. I’d been showing Theo my old book collection earlier, and for some reason, I thought of the Jungle Book just as I was about to portal us—”
“It’s fine.” Emily patted her shoulder. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
Now that she knew how to activate her powers, time traveling had become easier for Emmeline, although sometimes, she still missed her destination.
She’d need plenty of practice—after everything had been revealed and Father told her about the family history, she hadn’t done that much time travel.
Today was an exception. Her aunt and uncle wanted to come to her birthday dinner, but with Emily this high pregnant, she didn’t find it very comfortable to travel by regular means—hence Emmeline’s little help with the portal.
“Are you sure you’re fine?” Emmeline asked her. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”
“The choice was either this or wait until the baby was born,” Emily said. “And since it’s a dinner, I’d rather do it now when I’m hungry all the time than later when I might plop my face straight into the soup from exhaustion.”
“If you say so.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me.” Emily caressed her belly and gave Emmeline a quick double wink—a signal that their agreement was still on. Emmeline winked back and moved on, heading around the table to Father and Theo.
“… transmitted by pulses of radio,” Father was saying. “But there’d been new tests with amplitude modulation—”
“Really, Papa?” She paused beside them. “At dinner?”
“It hasn’t started yet,” Father said. “And besides, he asked.”
“I did.” Theo smiled at her, his eyes soft and gentle. “Radio is fascinating. It’s unfathomable to be able to get a message across the ocean so quickly.”
This is what she got, for choosing a man just like her father.
Once it’s been decided Theo would stay in this time—as he said, if she was here, he didn’t want to go anywhere else—her parents graciously provided him with accommodations until he got his life in order.
Father helped him get a job at a newspaper, and Theo went on to absorb all the knowledge of this newfound era like a sponge.
He wanted to know everything: from automobiles to communications, from new architectural styles to developments in natural sciences, and Emmeline was more than happy to help him along.
What she was slightly less happy about was that since they came back to New York, they’d scarcely had any alone time together. Her parents had accepted Theo, but that didn’t mean they suddenly became all loosey-goosey with the rules.
And just on cue, as if she somehow knew what Emmeline was thinking about, Emily let out a yelp. “Oh, the baby!”
In an instant, everyone rushed to her side; everyone except for Emmeline, who grabbed Theo’s hand and led him out of the dining room and up the stairs to the hallway.
“Your aunt—shouldn’t we—”
She shushed him with a finger to his lip. “It’s fine. She’s only pretending.”
“She is? Why?”
“So I can do this,” she said, and kissed him.
After a moment of surprise, Theo relaxed and kissed her back.
Based on his lips hungrily seeking hers and drinking her in, he’d felt deprived these past few months, too.
He pressed her against the wall and peppered a trail past her jawline, down her throat, and across her collarbone, as she sunk her fingers into his silky hair and arched up into him.
Oh, how she wished to be like this, with him, forever—but tonight, time was short, and they could only afford a few stolen kisses.
So steal them, she did, and she giggled as his breath tickled her skin, and slid her fingers down his neck, and back up.
He trailed her spine over the delicate beading of her dress, and—
“Don’t you think she’s been pretending for a while?” he said.
Emmeline blinked, trying to think clearly through her desire-muddled thoughts. Right—her aunt! “Maybe.”
“Should we go check?”
It was probably for the best. She didn’t want to risk getting caught, and Emily could only pretend for so long.
As they returned downstairs, voices from the dining room grew louder.
Emmeline frowned at Theo, who frowned back, and they hurried inside.
Everyone was gathered on one side of the table, but their backs covered a clear view of what was going on.
“Going back might not be safe in this condition,” James said.
“I’m not having the baby in 1912! You don’t even have anesthesia!” Emily growled.
Emmeline made her way around the table, still holding Theo’s hand. Emily was leaning on the table’s edge, panting and holding her belly, and—she’d spilled a drink on the floor?
Emmeline met her eyes.
“Oh, hey, Blue,” Emily said. “So, turns out I wasn’t faking.”